In a layman’s term, social selling is the act of utilizing social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube to not only prospect, but research, network, collaborate, educate and close with an aim of increasing profit margins and achieving quota.

In contrast to the conventional way of thinking, the modern consumer is well informed, and as such tends to have absolute control over the purchasing process. Therefore, failure to recognize this will automatically result in sharp decline of your profit margins.

A study that was carried out by Social Centered Selling on Social Media and Sales Quota discovered that roughly 78.3 percent of sales people take advantage of the benefits offered by social media to increase their revenues. The study went further to reveal that 72.6 percent of sales people who constantly use social media not only promote their products, but educate consumers outdid their sales counterparts who solely relied on other forms of advertisement.

How Does Social Media Influence Your Revenues?

In order to understand how social media influences your revenue collection, you need to take time and analyze the key findings of the Social Media and Sales Quota as at the end of December, 2012. For instance:

– ROI (Return on Investment): In the study, it was discovered that there is a direct link between social media advertising and closed deals. A majority of sales leasers are only interested in ROI in the event that their sales personnel spend too much time on social media. Interestingly, 54% of sales people who use social media advertising attribute their closed deals to social media usage.

A major concern amongst a majority of sales leaders is that sales personnel who use social media to endorse their products and services are less likely to spend much time in doing the actual sales work. However, according to the findings by Social Centered Selling, approximately 50.1 percent of sales people actually spend between 5 and 10 percent of their time on social media. What this means is that, you only need to spend roughly 1-2 hours per day on social media in order to realize increased sales performance.

What Are the Perils of Ignoring Social Media?

As at the end of December, 2012, it was estimated that 67 percent of adult online users utilize social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Then again, as at the end of February, 2013, Facebook had a total of 1.06 billion active users. What this means is that, if you are not using social media to promote your products and educate consumers, you are missing out on millions of prospective clients.

Utilizing Social Media

As per Social Centered Selling, approximately 21.7 percent of sales people who ignore social media to sell noted a decline in their revenues and sales quota. However, this can also be attributed to lack of training when it comes to social selling.